Researcher Speaks About Her Life Work in Gaza

Harvard Researcher Speaks About Her Life Work
in Gaza

Dr. Sarah Roy is one of the foremost scholars on
the economy in Gaza. She is the author of over 90
publications on the Israel-Palestine conflict; and she is
senior researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies
at Harvard University. She spoke about her identity as a
daughter of Holocaust survivors and her life work in
Gaza.

“My parents cared about issues of justice and
fairness,” Roy said. “They cared about people a great
deal.”

It was not uncommon for her family to bring home a
homeless person and sit them at the head of the table during
Sabbath. Her mother came from a deeply religious and loving
family. Her parents taught Judaism as a system of ethics
and culture. As a result, it provided a context for Roy’s
life, which included compassion and tolerance.

Her first
experience with the occupation involved a Palestinian man
who walked with his grandson. They had a donkey with them.
Israeli soldiers walked by and asked: “Don’t you brush your
donkey’s teeth?” The soldiers yelled and laughed at the
man. His grandson – a boy no more than four years-old –
cried.

Then, the soldiers demanded the elderly man stand
behind the donkey and kiss its behind. Roy remembered the
humiliation the man felt and the uncontrollable sobs of a
little boy.

Since 1985, Roy lived, experienced and
witnessed similar situations. When she was in a shelter
with a Palestinian woman, they felt fear when Israeli
soldiers banged down the door. She witnessed Israeli
soldiers force young, Palestinian men kneel and bark like
dogs or dance in the streets. When a Palestinian woman, who
was pregnant, flashed a “V” sign to Israeli soldiers, Roy
saw them beat her.

The grinding impact of the occupation
on the Palestinian people and their daily lives led Roy to a
dissertation on the economic development of the West Bank
and Gaza under the military conditions of occupation. Her
PhD is in planning and social policy. Her passion for her
work brings her to the region frequently where she lives for
several months.

Over the years, Roy witnessed home
demolitions.

“The house is far more than the roof…it
represents life itself,” she said. She says the demolitions
uproot these families tragically, who live their lives from
a stolen homeland.

Roy talked about the separation of
Palestinian families, the thousands of people tortured and
the thousands of olive and citrus trees uprooted from
Palestinian land. She described the effects of Israeli
settlements and road expansion as geographic fragmentation,
because the topography of the land changes drastically in
periods of several years.

Right now Palestinians live on
three, noncontiguous cantons of land. Truncated pieces of
land with checkpoints and detours not only make their lives
difficult, but the formulation of a Palestinian state is
almost impossible.

“Israeli occupation
of the Palestinians is the crux of the problem,” Roy said.
From her life experiences in the region, Roy sees no moral
symmetry between the occupier and the occupied.

Since 09/11, the war against dissent stigmatizes people who
articulate recourse for justice. In a world where Israeli
soldiers admit to shooting Palestinian children for sport
and governments look on; the distortion of commitment within
the Israel-Palestine conflict under the Bush Administration
reached the point where rhetoric cannot hide the stark
violence on the ground.

When asked about the
effects of the passing of Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat,
Roy responded: “We are aware of the fact that Israel and the
U.S. are framing this conflict around personalities and not
issues.”

Roy’s candid and insightful lecture showed the
values instilled in her. “I grew up with a mother and
father who new fear and how they overcame it,” she said.

Despite the fact she lost over 100 members of her family
in Nazi ghettos and death camps, Roy committed her life to
documenting the living conditions of the Palestinian
people.

When asked what advice her mother would give to
Palestinians today, Roy said: “Maintain their moral anchor,
remain steadfast, stay together as a community, don’t allow
themselves to disintegrate…and don’t become what the
oppressors would like to see them to be.”

***

North Park
College’s Center for Middle Easter Studies sponsored Roy’s
lecture, “Living with the Holocaust: The Journey of a Child
of Holocaust Survivors.”

*************

Sonia
Nettnin is a freelance writer. Her articles and reviews
demonstrate civic journalism, with a focus on international
social, economic, humanitarian, gender, and political
issues. Media coverage of conflicts from these perspectives
develops awareness in public opinion.

Nettnin received
her bachelor's degree in English literature and writing. She
did master's work in journalism. Moreover, Nettnin
approaches her writing from a working woman's perspective,
since working began for her at an early age.

She is a
poet, a violinist and she studied professional dance. As a
writer, the arts are an integral part of her sensibility.
Her work has been published in the Palestine Chronicle,
Scoop Media and the Washington Report on Middle East
Affairs. She lives in Chicago.

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